Well, I just heard back from Lamin (I had no idea that he was Yingmin store, or was on DHGate
), all is a go for my sample order (a 186 & a 187).
Just gotta arrange my payment tonight and wait for the glass.
Edit:
After currency conversion, and payment processing fees, the $usd128 tuned into $aud165, so I'm gonna just call it $85 a piece cost to me - fingers crossed they are quality matrices.
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Just got my order from sunshine store
Took 4 days (Including a weekend, so 2 business days) to get from china to aussie customs, and 6 business days from aussie customs to my door.
First impressions:
D020:
- A little bit smaller than I expected, but not too small.
- All slits are fairly evenly cut and spaced. Not fire polished but oh well
.
- I noticed an ever so slight nub on the bottom of the showerhead - it looks like where you would brace it to the bottom of the can. There's no brace, but maybe whoever is blowing the showerheads (I'm assuming sunshine store is just a reseller, not the actual blower?) intends for it to be braced? (I wasn't expecting it to be braced)
- Workmanship on it seems good, no bubbles or anything major noticed, but I haven't inspected it too thoroughly.
- I forgot it had the little brace from the neck to the top of the can - I'm not sure how useful that will be, but I like it.
- The diffusion seems to be "rough". I put my water level a smidge above the top of the slits (1/2cm max) and almost got water into the neck on a test pull. Not a negative thing, but something I'll have to remember.
- The dewaar joint is a little bit recessed - I'm pretty sure I'll have to use my cloudbuddy if I want to use my cloud with it.
D020-W
- A bit bigger than the D020 - I prefer this size.
- The sidecar mouthpiece is attached to the right hand side of the piece - technically that makes it a "left handed" design, but it's not a major hassle to work around it.
- The diffusion seems a bit smoother than the D020 - I put my water level to a bit above the top of the matrix (1/2-1cm) and there didn't seem to be any risk of bubbles entering the neck.
- Workmanship on it seems good, no bubbles or anything major noticed, but I haven't inspected it too thoroughly. the mouthpiece might be rotated counter clockwise by 10 degrees or so, or it might just be the design...
- The dewaar joint is a little bit recessed - I'm pretty sure I'll have to use my cloudbuddy if I want to use my cloud with it.
Fritted ash catcher
- Color looks cool
- it could handle being a bit taller, but it seems to be their generic ash catcher size, so can't blame them.
- Workmanship overall seems good, but mine came with 2 small cracks in it
I'm gonna have to contact sunshine store to get it replaced or something.
The cracks are very small, less than 1cm each, and they don't seem to go all the way through the glass (can't feel them on te outside) but I'm not gonna be using it
